More frequently vehicles, such as cars, are being fitted with IVISs. An IVIS is a system for providing information and entertainment to the driver and/or passengers of a vehicle. IVISs are often capable of connecting to auxiliary devices, such as mobile telephones, games controllers, headsets and external hard drives. An IVIS may connect to auxiliary devices wirelessly, for example via Bluetooth® or WiFi. An IVIS may connect to auxiliary devices via a wired connection, for example via Universal Serial Bus (USB).
It will be appreciated that a great many types and models of auxiliary device are available. For instance, there are a great number of different makes and models of mobile telephones on the market today. Thus, a passenger or a driver of a vehicle may attempt to connect the IVIS to any make/model of mobile phone that may be in that passenger or driver's possession. It would be desirable for the IVIS to have the ability to connect with any auxiliary device that the passenger or driver should wish to connect to the IVIS. In addition, it would be desirable for the IVIS to provide a full complement of functionality, in terms of interoperability, to any such auxiliary device.
At present, in an attempt to fulfil these desires, the IVIS is manufactured, and then the interoperability between the IVIS and various auxiliary devices is tested manually in order to identify any interoperability faults. Once a fault is identified the IVIS is modified in an attempt to eradicate the fault.
There are a number of technical problems with manually testing IVIS interoperability. One of these problems is that, in order to conduct particular interoperability tests, it is often necessary to perform an activity at one of the auxiliary devices in dependence on a particular state of the IVIS, for instance directly after a specific activity has been performed at the IVIS, before another activity is initiated at the IVIS. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to conduct such a test manually.
Another problem with manual testing is that in order to test the interoperability between the IVIS and the auxiliary device, it may be necessary to control the auxiliary device such that the auxiliary device executes an activity at the exact same time that the IVIS executes another activity. In any case it would be difficult to determine if the two activities had indeed been executed simultaneously and whether the test had been carried out as planned.
In another example, it may be necessary to control the auxiliary device such that the IVIS and the auxiliary device execute a number of activities in a specific order relative to one another and at specific time intervals relative to one another. Again, this type of test may be very difficult, if not impossible, to perform manually.